I recently had the unique opportunity to have an in depth tasting session with Henderson Ventura of ADVentura Cigars, experiencing the differences in all the components utilized in their cigars.

[Shane Ireland]: Hey everybody. I'm here con mi hermano Henderson Ventura. Henderson, good to see you again. It's been forever.

[Henderson Ventura]: Good to see you again.

[SI]: And I am in for a treat here.

[HV]: We have some of the most common components in cigar manufacturing here to try out today.

[SI]: And you're going to teach me a little bit about how blenders taste them.

[HV]: Yeah, we have some common and uncommon components here.

Criollo 98 Seco

[HV]: The first thing that we're going to try here today is the tobacco that we use as a base of most of our blends. 90 percent of all the blends that we make use this tobacco, which is Criollo 98 Seco.

This is one of the most complex tobacco on its own. Normally each tobacco gives you a different stimulation in your mouth, but in one direction. Criollo 98 is the only tobacco that stimulates two parts of your tongue: the bitter part in the back, and also the acidic pack of your tongue that is on the side.

You can taste some kind of dark coffee, wood, or more of a creamy taste that stimulates the acidic part. What we're tasting right now is the Seco, which is a fast combustor tobacco. The combustion of that tobacco is very quick. As for the aroma, you're going to experience nice, floral notes in the nose of the retrohale on the Seco primer, because it's less oily. When a tobacco is less oily, you're going to get more aroma; more oily, like a Ligero primer, you're going to get more flavor, more strength, but less aroma.

[SI]: So, you said Seco Criollo 98 is the most common in production. Is that just in the Dominican Republic? Or is that industry wide?

[HV]: Industry wide. For example, in Nicaragua, you get Criollo 98 all around Nicaragua, but they don't call the tobacco by variety. They call the tobacco by where it's grown, like Estelí or Condega or Jalapa, but pretty much everybody grows Criollo 98 or everybody switches to another variety of tobacco. I think right now they're growing a lot of Corojo 2012 in Nicaragua, but back in the day, it was Criollo 98.

[SI]: I definitely get the floral notes and the aroma. It's also instantly making me salivate.

[HV]: Normally when you're tasting the tobacco, you do not inhale the tobacco, but you at least try to get the tobacco up to the nose.

[SI]: And what about the retrohale? When you're tasting components, are you doing that often?

[HV]: Mostly in every puff I retrohale. You get more of the flavor through the retrohale.

[SI]: So if you're tasting this variety of tobacco, how do you know if it's what you're looking for? How do you know if it's right?

[HV]: It's a typical experience with some spice on the lips and tongue in the front, with no bitterness. I'll tell you why we use that tobacco as a base once you've had a chance to taste it. What are you experiencing from that cigar so far, what flavors and sensations?

[SI]: I felt instantly salivation on the sides of my mouth. I would say, flavor wise, I'm getting bitter chocolate. There's definitely floral notes, but I get that on the retrohale more than anything else. I feel maybe a little bit of spice on the palate towards the back of my tongue.

[HV]: The Criollo 98 is spicy by itself. You're always gonna get that spice naturally. What is the strength level?

[SI]: Not too strong, about medium. Six and a half out of 10.

[HV]: Actually, the Criollo 98 Seco is stronger than any other.

[SI]: Is it really? Mmm. It's difficult to tell the difference with one component. I think that's true for a lot of consumers, the difference between strength of flavor and actual strength. It feels very flavorful. It honestly feels like it is just a straight cigar, like a full blend.

[HV]: Yeah, it feels like you can smoke that cigar all day. No problem.

[SI]: If you gave this to me and I didn't know what we were doing, I would think this was a cigar with more than one component.

[HV]: That's the thing about the Criollo 98. It is one of the best to use in any cigar in the industry, because of the complexity by itself.

Corojo Seco

[SI]: Alright, let's try the other seco. Let's try Corojo Seco now. Now that you mention it, I guess I do feel a little bit more strength than six and a half from the first one. Tell me about what we're smoking now.

[HV]: Tell me what you feel.

[SI]: It feels a little lighter in flavor. It's a little brighter and a little more woody, but the initial couple of puffs that I took gave me the flavors that I associate with creaminess a little bit more than the first one. The sensation is less in the front of my palate than the middle or the back, I would say. In the first one I felt it nearly all over, and this one's a little bit further back.

[HV]: How about the flavor profile?

[SI]: Like I said, it's a little bit zestier, woody, and a bit brighter. I feel like I'm getting a little bit of sweetness, but not a ton. Based on previous experiences with full blends, I would say it still has some floral notes to it as well.

[HV]: This is the Corojo Seco that we're smoking right now. The Corojo is pretty much the same as the Criollo 98. It comes from the same base of the hybrids of the tobacco. The difference is it gives you more stimulation in the bitter part than the acidic part of the tongue. Do you feel a little bit of sweetness? You're gonna get more sweetness with that tobacco with more age on it. That's three-year-old tobacco. If we make a cigar and we let it age for another year, you're gonna get more sweetness out of that tobacco also. How would you rate that cigar strength wise?

[SI]: Compared to the first one? I said 6.5, but it was probably more like 8 or 7.5. This one feels lighter to me.

[HV]: Something that you need to understand also is that when we smoke a Puro, without the cigar being pressed, there's more open air flow. You're gonna feel that the spice isn't very strong, but there's an intensity in the flavor. It's long lasting on your palate.

[SI]: The aftertaste is not nearly as long lasting as the first one. I feel like I have a pretty clean palate after puffing on this one. Flavor wise, I think woodiness and floral, mostly, and yeah, it's definitely significantly less strong than the other one, from what I can feel.

Ligero Puro

[HV]: Let's try the Ligero now. It's a 100 percent Ligero Puro. Normally when you're smoking the Ligero Puro, you feel less spiciness than the Seco, because it goes through a slower combustion, with more oil and tobacco.

[SI]: It's very rich. I feel like I could feel the strength pretty much immediately. It's not super strong, but my heart rate elevated after a few puffs. It's definitely rich. It feels more heavy on the palate. I think I am getting more bitterness than the previous two. Flavor profile wise, it reminds me a little bit of dark chocolate, and a little bit of nuts. There's a nuttiness to it, and a little bit of earthiness, but my palate's on the dry side.

[HV]: Do you know why you feel more bitterness on this one? The intensity of the flavor of that tobacco is more than the Seco. But it's the same stimulation on the back, on the bitter part of the palate. The intensity of the stimulation is what changed.

[SI]: Yeah. Whereas I feel like I could have smoked the Criollo Seco as a complete cigar. This one feels a lot more straight, lighter, and linear. The further I get into it, the more I feel the bitterness. It's not unpleasant though. It's like bitter dark chocolate. The aroma's also very interesting. It's very woody.

HVA Viso

[HV]: We're going to smoke another tobacco that has been in our family for a long time. This is HVA Viso.

[SI]: Can you remind me again about the various primings? The Ligero is gonna be further up the plant and the Seco and the Viso is where?

[HV]: At the very bottom is the Volado. Then the second priming at the bottom is the Seco. Then in the center you have the Viso, and then you have the Ligero on top.

[SI]: So this would be a middle priming of HVA.

[HV]: HVA is a variation of the Corojo seed that is resistant to the blue mold.

[SI]: Ah, okay. Where was it originally developed?

[HV]: In Cuba.

[SI]: In Cuba? Wow. I don't know if it's because we smoked the Ligero before this, but instantly this feels much more sweet to me. I mean I definitely get a similar amount of spiciness to the Criollo Seco. But at the first light I felt more sweetness, or I perceived more sweetness. I can feel this on the front of my palate and on the sides. This might be my favorite so far.

[HV]: And it's a totally different stimulation, right? It's more hitting the middle of the tongue to the front and the sides.

[SI]: Yeah, I can feel it very clearly on the front and the sides of my tongue. One thing that's different from the first two we tried is that I'm getting more of the spice through the retrohale and less of it on the palate.

[HV]: Exactly. It's very sweet and clean on the palate and more intense on the retrohale. The nicotine level is higher. That's how we measure it, with strength rather than body. Body is one thing for us and strength is another thing.

[SI]: This does feel like one of the more full-bodied ones as well. It's really nice. I could maybe smoke that by itself.

[HV]: Those are the three basic tobaccos that we use here. They make up about 70 percent of the blends that we make from our family, and if you're looking for a complex blend, that tobacco gives you a bigger stimulation toward the front of the tongue. The Criollo 98 stimulates a lot on the side, affording a lot of creaminess, and then the Corojo stimulates the back of the tongue a lot. So that's a very complex blend that results in a very rounded smoke when they're combined.

[SI]: From these first four, I feel like I have hit nearly everything. Let me ask you really quick on this one, because again, I think this is very nice. Are there any blends in your portfolio that would give somebody a good idea of what this tobacco does?

[HV]: This is how I would describe that tobacco. If you take a piece of wood and you wrap it with leather and you burn both at the same time, there's that kind of smoky, leathery, and woody taste. It's very distinctive and unique, and very enjoyable at the same time.

[SI]: It is. Let me rephrase that question. Is there a cigar that you produce with a full blend that is a good example of this where it's very obvious to the smoker?

[HV]: We use that tobacco in the Explorer. And also on the Queen's Pearl. The first time that we ever used that tobacco was in Long Live The King and The King Is Dead for Caldwell Cigars.

Olor Dominicano Ligero

[SI]: This next one is the most unique, I think, so far.

[HV]: My Dad used to treat that tobacco like it was the most special thing in the world. And Rob and I would make those blends and he'd say "That's too much tobacco, just use half a leaf of the cigar." This is a tobacco that I don't use on any of my blends. The only cigar that has that blend that we ever created is the La Barba Purple, which is a little Dominicano. This tobacco you're trying now is the Olor Ligero.

[SI]: Okay, great.

[HV]: For me, the Olor Dominicana and the Broadleaf are very similar. There's earthiness in both, but the Olor is a little bit more funky and there's more strength, but with age, it has a lot more power. It's way less sweet than the Broadleaf. Broadleaf is sweeter than chocolate. This one is more earthy and funky. That's the typical original in the Dominican Republic. the Dominican Maduro cigar is old school and almost like dirt.

[SI]: It's minerally, kind of more like sand. I don't know any other way to put it. It feels a little brighter than that, but it definitely does have a funkiness to it.

[HV]: This is also growing on the opposite side of where we grow all the Cuban seed. So we grow all the Cuban seed in the west of the Santiago province. And the Olor Dominicano is originally from Tamboril and San Vito, which is on the edge of the Santiago province. It's between Santiago and Moca, which is another province. That's where you get the best Olor Dominicano. How would you describe that tobacco and where do you feel the stimulation?

[SI]: I would say mostly on the sides and maybe a little bit to the back.

[HV]: So for me, the stimulation is on the right center until the tip of the tongue on the salty part. That's why it tastes more minerally, right? It's because of the salty stimulation you get, especially in the aftertaste.

[SI]: This is very interesting.

Broadleaf Brûlée Viso

[HV]: This next one we call Broadleaf Brûlée. It's kind of got the same funkiness that we had in the Olor. Even the retrohale is very similar.

[SI]: For me, this one is a little more woody and sweet, with cereal and malty notes. The retrohale is on the spicy side, and I'm feeling it more towards the front.

[HV]: Yeah, it's not really narrow in the center. It's more on the sides.

[SI]: I would say not quite as much as the Criollo Seco, but I was salivating more than the last few that we tried, for sure. There's also some leathery notes in this one. This is my second favorite so far.

[HV]: It tastes like a blend already. Which one is your favorite ADVentura?

[SI]: My favorite ADVentura changes. Originally, I would say the Navigator. But I've been smoking more of the Queen's Pearl and the King's Gold lately. And La Llorona.

[HV]: This is a tobacco that we use on the King's Gold box press, along with Criollo 98 and Connecticut Broadleaf.

[SI]: Interesting. So, in your opinion, what does this add to a blend?

[HV]: It adds sweetness, but there's also nuttiness in the retrohale. Depending on the priming, if you use more Ligero, it's more of a dark chocolate. If you use the Seco, it's more like an earthy kind of sweet taste. This is the Viso, so it's sort of in between.

[SI]: I would also say that this is a little more like the HVA Viso. They're both still pretty rich, maybe not as rich as the Ligero. They're a little more balanced. I feel like I could smoke this straight and be pretty happy.

[HV]: With the King's Gold, we were trying to highlight the real flavor of the Broadleaf in its Puro form. That's why there's a rich, medium body, medium to full, with a perfect balance between strength and flavor. And you get to taste that sweetness, nuttiness, and also the earthiness of the Broadleaf.

[SI]: I feel like the earthiness here too reminds me more of mushrooms than it does of soil. It's like a portobello steak. That's really good.

[HV]: And the spice is not peppery. It's more like a cinnamon spice.

[SI]: Yeah, that's really good. Maybe that's number one, I don't know.

Aromático Seed

[HV]: Alright, let's try a signature tobacco. There are no blends in the market that have this tobacco yet. That's an Aromático. That's a hybrid seed from Dominican Olor tobacco that engineer Peralta developed. And I tried it for the first time over 12 years ago. When I started to grow tobacco in my own fields, this was the first tobacco that we grew.

[SI]: So you've grown a few crops of this by now?

[HV]: Every year we grow between 30 to 40 tereas. Since I'm not doing anything with that tobacco, I just grade that tobacco, process it, and let it age. And the yield of that tobacco is not very good. So, we're treating it more like a special for a limited edition or something like that. The aroma of the tobacco is why it's called Aromático.

[SI]: Wow. It's crazy. So, I'm curious. Based on what we've smoked so far, I would guess that this was a higher priming.

[HV]: This is a Viso. It's totally different from whatever else we had. I think that's a tobacco that we can use to play with people's brains when they get to taste it.

[SI]: This is unlike anything I've ever tasted. The aroma is sweet, nutty, and woody. I kind of feel this one nearly all over, but maybe more towards the back.

[HV]: I feel it more in the back and also like in the front here.

[SI]: It's like the tip and the entire back. I wish I could get this as a cologne. It smells amazing. It's like a musky, woody aroma. The finish also feels very clean to me.

[HV]: Yeah, it's kind of sweet like vanilla, or something like that.

[SI]: Yeah. That's fantastic. I really like the HVA and the Broadleaf, but this one I think I might finish when we're done here. That's fantastic.

[HV]: Normally when we create blends, the base of the blend is normally Criollo 98 or Corojo, and then we add layers, such as a layer of Broadleaf, a layer of Aromático, or HVA, or the others that we have, such as Nicaraguan or Pennsylvania. Here we have another common tobacco that is being used a lot in the full-bodied cigars. Most of the strength that you get isn't from the Cuban or Dominican seeds. After we ferment and age the tobacco, Cuban or Dominican seeds have maybe 3.5 percent of nicotine.

Pennsylvania Double Ligero

[HV]: Pennsylvania Double Ligero is the only tobacco that we use on cigars that has around 7.25 percent of nicotine.

[SI]: I guess it's a good thing I hadn't just smoked a whole bunch of other tobaccos before this.

[HV]: We use maybe 10 percent of this tobacco in a blend because it's very minerally. If you abuse the percentage of the tobacco that you put into a blend of those, you can have some metallic taste. There's sweetness and some strength, but then in your body you feel the nicotine. It comes out strong when it's mixed with other tobacco.

[SI]: For me, I feel this one more in the front on the sides. It feels a little sharper. The retro is intense.

[HV]: Do you see how you feel the nicotine in the retrohale and in the nose now? Sometimes you can have a very spicy cigar on the retro, but it's very clean in your mouth. For the consumer, strong is a full-bodied experience that is very rich in your mouth, filling your palate with a lot of intensity. You can really feel the nicotine here on the retro.

[SI]: Yeah, this one is intense. I do feel the sweetness, but I wouldn't say it's the spiciest. I feel more spice on the retrohale.

[HV]: Right, not in the mouth.

[SI]: Yeah, I'm sure our lovely high definition cameras can see me sweating now. I don't know if that's because of this whole pile right here, or what, but this is considerably stronger.

[HV]: While making a blend, it takes remembering the tastings and the different flavor profiles that you've accumulated through the years as a smoking purist to make the best mixtures. That's what gives you the experience of a master blender: understanding the behavior of each tobacco.

And sometimes, even when you're creating a new blend, you need to go back and do the research or taste the tobacco again, or the new crop, because sometimes they change a little bit from one year to another year. The level of intensity and the flavor of the tobacco can be different. So you go back all the time. And this is what we do on a daily basis in our factory. We're looking for consistency and balance within the full blends, breaking down each individual component.

This is part of my hobby; tasting different tobacco from different regions. For example, many years back to back, I tried tobacco from Colombia. They have a tobacco that they call a Cubita. It's different and amazing as a Puro, but at the same time, if you make a cigar with it, it ruins the whole cigar. It doesn't come through. I thought a lot about the way they do their fermentation and the curing. It's a very simple fermentation, and then they let it age. So the tobacco is aged and turns kind of yellow in color. It doesn't get dark. When you make the cigar, you can still taste the green. Even if you don't do the fermentation right, and you age the tobacco, you're never gonna get like the green out it.

Puro Toscano

[HV]:This is the last one we will taste: Puro Toscano tobacco from Italy. It's seven years old from a batch that I found.

[SI]: I think our viewers who have heard me talking about tobacco for many years know that I smoke a lot of Toscanos. I smoke a lot of Italian and American fire-cured tobacco, so I'm excited about this.

[HV]: This is one of the most interesting tobaccos that I've ever smoked, not because it's better than any of the tobacco that we ever had, it's just different. When we create a blend, that's the point. If we're gonna create a new blend, or a new line in our portfolio, and we do something that's the same that we've been doing, it doesn't make sense. With the tasting research, I look for new tobacco to make a blend delivering a different experience. This tobacco, with the smokiness and the age, is totally amazing.

[SI]: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that if you gave this to me blindly, I would be able to guess that it was Italian. I'm used to it, but also it's so much less intense in the degree of firing than American-produced Dark Fired. It's a lot more aromatic and floral. It's not so smoky or sharp.

[HV]: Actually, the first blend that I ever created with the smoky, cured tobacco was in the Kentucky. And it's pretty good. It's just way more sharp than this one. And you can feel more of the intensity of the smokiness in the Kentucky, probably because of the age. I never found tobacco like that at seven years old. As soon as I found Italian, I recognized that this is a similar experience, but way more refined.

[SI]: It is. This is a very elegant Dark-Fired leaf. And I would say I'm not getting a lot of sweetness, but there's a little bit of sweetness there. I feel the stimulation on the tip of my tongue, but honestly, maybe all over for me. The retrohale is amazing too.

[HV]: This is an exercise that I'm doing with you guys here. I've been trying to figure out also where I feel most of the stimulation, because I feel the tobacco that goes all around my mouth is more of a full body. I'm getting it between the center of the mouth and further down, with what they call the umami part of the tongue.

[SI]: Yeah. I think the Criollo Seco, the HVA Viso, the Broadleaf, and this one as well are the ones that feel like a complete, full body with. Is this in anything that you're currently making?

[HV]: I just used that tobacco in the Chancellor. That was a limited edition that we did.

[SI]: So anybody out there that can still find the Chancellor, they can get a little bit of this experience. There are moments where this reminds me slightly of Lakeland pipe tobacco. I'm trying to think of something super specific, but it's in that sort of vein. Not intensely, but I get that impression. It also smokes totally differently than in the actual Toscano format.

Final Thoughts On Tasting Components

[HV]: What's your final review of the taste of all this amazing tobacco, with different profiles? There's a cigar for everybody. The different blends that we have, you cannot judge a brand just because you didn't like one single cigar that you tried. We're trying to make a cigar for every palate. And there's tobacco here that maybe is not your choice, to your taste. But there's tobacco that you're going to love from there. There's so many blends that you can create just using three tobaccos from here, changing the percentages and the primings. The experiences are very different.

[SI]: Yeah, this has been a really fun and enlightening experience. I've tasted a few tobaccos in their pure form before, but never anything this intense and comprehensive. And I'll remind everybody out there that I'm tasting one priming from each of these, from one crop year. You could spend a whole day tasting different types of tobacco. It's incredible. One of these days you can make me something with the HVA, the Toscano seven year old, and maybe the Criollo Seco. Henderson, thank you so much, my friend.

[HV]: Thank you, sir.